1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a storm shield for the protection of glass or other fragile window and door structures from breakage or damage that would otherwise occur due to severe atmospheric weather conditions or due to vandals or burglars. More particularly, the present invention relates to a shield for use on homes, office buildings, and other walled structures in geographical locations where high winds, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, or other destructive weather related phenomenon or vandalism, burglary, or similarly destructive crimes are of sufficiently frequent occurrence to require a special protective means for windows, doors, and similar openings in building structures.
2. Description of Related Art
Hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and other intense weather related phenomenon, and destructive acts of vandalism and burglary, have resulted in enormous quantities of property damage. Often, storm related damage occurs when flying debris, surging high water tides, or high winds cause windows or doors to break, thus causing further damage to the window or door structure and the interior of the building. Such damage cumulatively taxes the nation through rebuilding costs, federal, state and local disaster relief assistance programs, and rising insurance premiums. Thus homeowners, business owners, insurance companies, insurance consumers and taxpayers all share a common interest in protecting property from damage. Covering windows and doors, the weakest part of a building's exterior structure, is necessary to protect the building and the contents of the building from damage due to high winds, water, and airborne debris during severe weather conditions. Window and door coverings are similarly preventative of criminal property damage including looting and vandalism.
Moreover, a severe weather condition often strikes after a minimal passage of time from a first warning of its approach. Therefore, it is desirable to have a storm shield that can be erected in the shortest amount of time possible.
In the past, building owners commonly prepared for oncoming storms by semi-permanently boarding up their buildings with boards and nails. Subsequent to the passage of such storms, the building owner frequently caused a disfiguration of the exterior surface of the building by removing the nails from the exterior walls of the building. As a result, a number of permanently installed storm shutters for protecting windows from inclement weather were developed and are known. Moreover, various types of temporary outside shields are known; however, these are often inconvenient to carry, difficult and slow to install or disassemble, or poorly shaped to absorb a force of impact.
Additionally, when the strain of an impact or other exterior force is more than the face of a shield can absorb, the common nail and board approach, and other well-known shields, bear the strain of impact through the fasteners, which can tear free of the exterior wall and cause additional damage to that wall, the window sash or sill, or the door frame, under the strain of an impact. Likewise, structural harm to the exterior wall can be caused by thermal expansion or contraction of the shield material when the shield lacks a means to move relative to its fasteners.
Some storm shields currently known in the art contain multiple segments. Such shields require additional fasteners, and additional time to erect and disassemble. Often these shields also require overlapping members. Overlapping members increase the cost of raw material in the shield. Additional fasteners increase both the cost of materials and the time required to erect and disassemble the shield.
Exemplary of shields having the above discussed disadvantages include the following. Several patents that show hurricane shields, shutters or panels that protect a window from the exterior include U.S. Pat. No. 2,012,388, issued to W. W. Goodman on Aug. 27, 1935; U.S. Pat. No. 2,583,439, issued to Joseph H. Oswald et al. on Jan. 22, 1952; U.S. Pat. No. 2,835,935, issued to T. P. Housley on May 27, 1958; U.S. Pat. No. 3,745,704, issued to James B. Covington on May 27, 1958; U.S. Pat. No. 4,333,271, issued to James F. DePaolo et al. on Jun. 8, 1982; U.S. Pat. No. 5,457,921, issued to Gregory E. Kostrzecha on Oct. 17, 1995; U.S. Pat. No. 5,487,243, issued to Joseph F. Hale on Jan. 30, 1996; French publication Number 862,325, by M. Arthur Egle, published on Mar. 4, 1941; British publication Number 650,882, by Sven Eric Persson, published on Mar. 7, 1951; German published Patent Number 958,248, and application number 10,326, by Thomas Gregory Fegan, published on Feb. 14, 1957; French publication Number 1,253,514, by M. Eugene-Emile Chehere, published on Jan. 2, 1961; French publication Number 1,335,864, by M. Merlin John Morgan et al., published on Jul. 15, 1963; and German publication Number 2,217,278, by Hubertus Schurian et al., published on Oct. 31, 1973. Related U.S. Pat. No. 5,228,238, issued to Randall M. Fenkell on Jul. 20, 1993, shows a transparent storm shutter that covers and protects a window from the exterior.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,514,945, issued to Robert J. Menchetti on May 7, 1985, shows a window insulating panel that covers and protects a window from the interior. U.S. Pat. No. 5,560,164, issued to Robert G. Ahrens on Oct. 1, 1996, also shows an inside shield for windows that covers and protects a window from the interior.
None of the above described inventions show a shield with a substantially singularly convex cross-section or a slot in which a fastener is slidably attached, which configuration maximally absorbs and distributes forces across the face of the shield and eliminates the need for temporary fastening means potentially destructive to the building. Likewise, none of the above inventions and patents, taken either singularly or in combination, is seen to describe the instant invention as claimed. Thus a removable storm shield solving the aforementioned problems is desired.